High quality anti-relaxation coating material for alkali atom vapor cells

TL;DR

This paper reports the development of a high-quality alkene-based anti-relaxation coating for alkali vapor cells, significantly extending spin relaxation times at room temperature, with implications for quantum sensing and atomic physics.

Contribution

It introduces a novel alkene-based coating that enhances spin relaxation times in alkali vapor cells, surpassing previous coatings in quality and longevity.

Findings

Longest measured spin relaxation times with alkene coatings

Chemical binding at C=C bonds improves coating performance

Room temperature vapor cells benefit from the new coating

Abstract

We present an experimental investigation of alkali atom vapor cells coated with a high quality anti-relaxation coating material based on alkenes. The prepared cells with single compound alkene based coating showed the longest spin relaxation times which have been measured up to now with room temperature vapor cells. Suggestions are made that chemical binding of a cesium atom and an alkene molecule by attack to the C=C bond plays a crucial role in such improvement of anti-relaxation coating quality.